Its last appearance at CES might have been a snooze-fest, but Microsoft is coming away from the Consumer Electronics Show with at least one notable victory under its belt: the company's smartphone managed to beat the majority of its challengers on the CES show floor.

Earlier this week, Microsoft's Ben Rudolph hit Vegas with a wad of cash in his hand. Rudolph was challenging any and all attendees with a non-Windows Phone device to a speed test challenge. If they won, he'd give them a hundred bucks, but if his Windows Phone won, they'd have to admit they got 'smoked by Windows Phone.'

Well, the results are in. According to Rudolph, 88-percent of challengers were 'smoked by Windows Phone.'

"We gave away a ton of new phones, lost a little bit of cash ($300, to be exact), and had a great time meeting our fans, haters, and everyone in between," Ben wrote on the Windows Phone blog, adding that Windows Phone beat 30 handsets, lost against three and drew with one.

AOC is launching a 22-inch USB-based monitor next month. In the meantime, consumers can get an early glance next week at CES 2012.

Earlier this week AOC introduced a 22-inch monitor (e2251Fwu) that draws its power and signal through a USB port. This $199 plug-and-play panel is scheduled to be shown next week during CES 2012, but won't see an actual retail release until February 2012.

According to the specs, the 22-inch AOC USB Monitor will support a 1920 x 1080 resolution @ 60 Hz, and will be compatible with Windows XP / Vista / Windows 7 & Apple MAC OSX Tiger / Leopard and Lion -- Linux support is also available through many of the standard distributions. The display will also be HDCP compatible and have an ultra-slim form factor, measuring just 10.6-mm thin.

As for other specs, the display will feature a brightness of 250cd, a 20,000,000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio, a 5ms response time, and LED-based backlighting that allows it to consume 50-percent less energy than many CCFL backlit monitors. A removable stand even allows it to "instantly transform into a digital photo frame or presentation display."

The numbers are in, and less than 1-percent of North Americans are still using Microsoft's ancient Internet Explorer 6 browser. They probably still use big giant mobile phones and outhouses too.

There's a good chance Microsoft as a whole is popping open the champagne bottles and tooting leftover New Year's Day horns, as the company has finally succeeded in pushing the masses into ditching Internet Explorer 6.

The company has for years literally begged consumers to update older versions of Internet Explorer, warning that it would reduce the (high) risk of acquiring viruses and other malicious malware. The company even just recently introduced a feature in Windows Update that will automatically update Internet Explorer, seemingly pushing users into staying current rather than ignoring browser revisions and risking infection.